Epilogue

Epilogue

The main motivation for this book has been to understand and to improve practice in a new area of work that brings together the hitherto disconnected activities of organisation development, community development, and public service development. This includes being sometimes downcast by the difficulties, complexities, and depredations of the so-called Mad Management Virus. This chapter provides a framework to help people make sense of this new world of practice, without oversimplifying the complexity in the situation. Whole systems development operates within a context of change defined by the underlying policy dilemmas and values that guide the work. The dilemmas provide the outer context; the values the inner. Within this context, the process of whole systems development work is defined by the Five Keys, and the outcomes of this process are the substantive and specific outcomes of the particular task, and the holding framework of the change architecture.

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